


Something Mundane, Okay?

by dumbender (kaijulicious)



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Ichabod gets clothes, Shopping!Fic, Welcome To The 21st Century Mr. Crane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-20
Updated: 2013-09-20
Packaged: 2017-12-27 02:27:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/973197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaijulicious/pseuds/dumbender
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abbie Mills now has a Revolutionary War Hero on her hands. Who smells like it. Well, not really. She made him shower. But he looks like it. And the clothes still kinda smell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Mundane, Okay?

"Abbie. How did it do that? It’s like the toast. But-but different. Abbie?"

"Automatic doors. Right," Abbie Mills responded to the startled ramble that erupted behind her with a soft huff. She really should have expected this. But Ichabod had been dealing with technology better recently, a bit more understanding and a bit less bewilderment. Well, after the toaster and the blender he was dealing with it better. “The door opens because it uses radar to know if something’s there,” she explained, turning around and walking back outside. She tugged Ichabod away from the door enough for it to close then walked back in herself, the door opening automatically. Once inside she turned with a little bit of a flourish and waited.

Ichabod was nodding slowly at her and then followed her in the mall, finally. Luckily he had been interested in the radar gun in her car a few days ago so Abbie didn’t have to explain radar, she already had. HowStuffWorks.com and Wikipedia were still duking it out on which was going to be Abbie’s #1 most viewed site. Having a Revolutionary War Hero sleeping in your spare room could do that to you.

"So, lieutenant-," Ichabod spared a quirk of a smile, an awkward little thing, as he noted Abbie’s eyebrow tick, he tended to switch back to calling her that when he wasn’t startled by the wonders of the modern age, "-Abbie. Why are we here in this…mall? Mall." 

"We are at the mall to shop, Ichabod, specifically for clothes," Abbie informed him as she spun on her heel and led the way. "Clothes for you."

"What? Me?" came the squawk of a reply, Ichabods quick footfalls bringing him up to her side within seconds.

"Yes, Ichabod. You. You’re still wearing the same pants, shirt, boots, and jacket that you were buried in two hundred and fifty years ago. You are getting new clothes,” Abbie emphasized the order with a sharp poke to his shoulder. She led him through the food court, grateful that a flustered Ichabod was an Ichabod not being startled by restaurants. Or teenager girls wearing less clothes than Revolutionary era prostitutes. Or teenage boys wearing less than what Ichabod would probably consider nightclothes. Thank god she could play him off as Amish.

Ichabod kept pace with her, but his mind was obviously trying to figure out an argument to avoid getting new clothes. “But you just washed them in those lovely machines!” Ichabod suddenly exclaimed, “Y’know. The loud box ones. They sounded like a horse dying, but my clothes are as good as new!”

Abbie snorted a laugh before replying in her most matter of fact voice, “They still smell like cave-grave, Ichabod. And they’re a few centuries out of style. Also? I said so.” At least men not wanting to shop was apparently a chronological constant.

Ichabod huffed and quieted down, apparently deciding that Abbie was right, simply walking in step with her. Abbie smiled to herself when she noticed him being distracted by a pair of girls delving into a photobooth, Ichabod usually gave in when she told him whatfor, especially when it came to modern day problems. He was also polite enough to match her stride instantly. By the time they reached Macy’s, Abbie only had to explain a handful of things to Ichabod, he’d apparently decided to treat most of the things that confused him like he did when Abbie used too many words he didn’t understand, ignored it like it was a particularly verbose chicken.

Stepping into the bottom floor of the department store, they were both immediately hit by the mishmosh scents that accompanied the perfume department; Abbie simply wrinkled her nose at all the smells, but Ichabod’s reaction was a hell of a lot more entertaining. He made a sound that sounded like a cat just starting to hock up a hairball and his hand flew up to his face so quickly that he smacked himself while pinching his nose shut.

"What the bloody devil hell," he wheezed out indignantly.

Abbie smothered her laugh quickly and nodded in understanding. “Perfume and cologne department,” she informed him, lightly gripping his elbow and steering him towards men’s clothes.

"I wish we’d had a perfume and cologne department when we were fighting the redcoats. We could have knocked them all out with that," he complained, not even giving a token brush off of her hand. When they reached the clothing, Ichabod’s eyes widened almost comically as he took in the amount of clothes on display.

"There’s more in the back. And this isn’t the only clothing store in the mall. And this is just the men’s section," Abbie told him with a gentle pat on the back. Leading him off to one side and bracing herself for what she expected would be a few hours of frustration on her side and consternation on his, she simply said, "Let’s start with shirts."

Moving from section to section turned out to be a good idea. First there was the initial eye-squints over the style changes, various reactions to the different types of material, and then finally picking out something. It was less painful than Abbie thought it was going to be, at least until they got to the part where Ichabod had to try things on. She had made him pick out about fifteen different shirts, shoved them into his arms, and then basically dragged him over to the changing room. He kept complaining, something about indecency and sanitary conditions (Abbie thought that was pretty hilarious coming from a guy who had thought that brushing your teeth twice a month with sugar water was a good thing) right up into he was pushed inside a changing room.

Abbie fixed him with a look that shut him up in a hurry then toneless said, “You are going to try on every one of those shirts. You are only going to come out of that room to show me each shirt as you try it on. Then you are going to pick at least four.”

Ichabod gaze kept a long-suffering quality on it for a few seconds before he swallowed and nodded. Abbie pulled the door shut, told him how to lock it, and then settled herself on the small bench on the opposing wall. A few minutes later, the door opened to reveal Ichabod in a blue and gray plaid shirt, the buttons were a bit askew and his face told Abbie exactly what he was going to say before he said it.

"I don’t like this one. Or the ones like it," he muttered with a bit of a grimace.

"Then skip all the plaid ones, we only pulled out a few of them," Abbie acquiesced. Ichabod nodded and closed the door, taking long enough for Abbie to smirk and chuckle quietly at how awful the man looked in plaid.

Ichabod came out several more times, each time the shirt was a no from him, and almost every time Abbie agreed. They were down to the last style of shirt they had grabbed, well actually Ichabod had grabbed those four, Abbie had been picking up the dress shirts that had slipped out of their hands off the floor. When he opened the door wearing a deep red v-neck shirt, Abbie was a little startled. Not only was his disgruntled expression wiped away, Ichabod looked good.The shirt fit well and it was a style he pulled off easily.

"I like this one," he stated a bit proudly to her. Abbie nodded in agreement before gesturing for him to turn around. The shirt fit in the back too, thank god. She curtailed any thoughts of how well the shirt showed off his shoulders and back, before telling him to go and try the other ones on. He’d pulled out a dark red, a black, a light orange, and a navy blue in the same style. Abbie wound up getting him a dark green and white in the same style, placing the finally approved shirts into a cart before instructing Ichabod to put all the other ones away while she went and got something.

He’d finished and was waiting by their cart by the time she returned, a package of cloth boxers and half-calf socks in hand. “What are those?” he inquired mildly, apparently Ichabod figured out that nothing short of a decapitation was going to stop Abbie’s quest for getting him dressed like a normal person, and had therefore given in. Or maybe he just liked the shirts and finally figured out that Abbie knew best.

"Socks and boxers. Which is a time of underwe-garment. For men. Bought and paid for, so once we find your jeans then whatever the hell you have under those trousers can be replaced," Abbiee answered as she pulled the cart away from Ichabod and aimed it towards the jean section. Ichabod’s eyebrows made a bid for his hairline, but he simply set his jaw and followed her.

Abbie had also puzzled out that the clothes that Ichabod would probably like would most likely be stuff similar to what he had, but she was determined to get the man into jeans. They were already looking to be in enough rough situations that she figured putting him in something durable would be in both their best interests. So she led Ichabod straight over to the boot-cuts. One good thing Abbie had learned about being in a male dominated field is eventually the ramblings of her coworkers would spit out information that was useful. Even if she had never figured she’d need to know which brand of men’s jeans was usually roomier in…everywhere, here she was.

Holding up a few pairs to Ichabod until she figured out his height, she sent him back into the changing rooms with a multitude of sizes, instructing him to find out which ones fit comfortable in the waist. When Ichabod finally emerged from the changing room in one of the pairs of jeans he swore fit, Abbie actually had to suppress the urge to whistle. Ichabod Crane may have been from the 1700s, but the man could fill a pair of jeans, something Abbie was able to appreciate from up close when she had him turn around and she tugged at the waistband to ensure the fit was good.

"I like this new pants, much better than what we had back in the 1700’s," Ichabod murmured as they began their trek to find the man some shoes. His eyes were bright and his smile was just a bit…cheeky, Abbie couldn’t help but smirk back at him. It was actually turning out to be an enjoyable day out.

The shoe department was a bit more jarring than the others, since Abbie had to get an employee to help her figure out Ichabod’s size. The employee, Julio, was either in an extremely good mood or was just generally enthusiastic about putting people’s feet in the slide ruler chart thing. Ichabod was less thrilled when the man would suddenly snatch his foot and pull it into the metallic…Abbie still had no idea what the thing was called. Once Julio had pipped up with Ichabod’s size, Abbie had already picked out a pair of black, canvas, high top boots. Julio returned with the correct size in what had to have been a land-speed record, Abbie was honestly wondering if she could tip the man, and then left them to their devices.

Abbie wound up crouching down next to Ichabod and showing him how to tie the laces, after lacing the boots up herself. They’d both been silent for the past few minutes, it was oddly comfortable. The last person that Abbie had enjoyed comfortable silence with like this was August, a thought that reassured her considering the crazy shit Ichabod said was coming for them.

"So," Ichabod’s quiet tone finally broke the silence, "I suppose I’m going to owe you quite a bit after this, uh, shopping trip." He smiled a bit embarrassed at her as she looked up to meet his eyes.

Abbie let out a snort of laughter before getting to her feet, Ichabod following in his newly tied boots. “No, Ichabod. You won’t. You didn’t ask to get dragged over two centuries into the future and you needed clothes,” she informed him before gesturing for him to take a few steps in his boots.

"So you’re just going to buy all this for me and not want me to pay you back?" his tone was slightly offended as he turned back towards her a couple of strides.

"No slipping? Comfortable?" she asked, and after being informed to the negative and positive, she continued, "Think of it like a barter instead. You don’t have money to pay me back so instead I want you to bust your ass trying to figure out how to deal with the horseman. And watch my back, we are partners after all."

Ichabod brightened after that, Abbie guessed he didn’t want to feel useless or like he was using her, and nodded. Snatching up the box and dumping it into the cart, he pushed it after her as they headed towards the registers. She stopped him about halfway there and gave him a little smirk. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” Abbie teased.

"No…" Ichabod hedged back.

"I think you are. I saw you eyeing that coat," Abbie replied smartly, tilting her head to the display across the isle from her that held a dark blue peacoat that Ichabod had definitely eyed.

He shook his head at her, however, and huffed, “My coat is just fine. And is free, seeing as I already own it.”

Abbie smacked him lightly on the shoulder and pointed at the display, “Go get the stupid coat, Ichabod. This one’s a gift.” A smile snuck its way onto his lips before he could stop it and Abbie just smiled back at her new partner.


End file.
